What is Endpoint Protection?

Remote and hybrid workplaces remain the norm across many different industries and verticals even three years post-lockdown. According to research by Zippia, an automated career finder platform, 74% of American companies currently incorporate hybrid, “productivity from anywhere” work environments or plan to in the coming months.

Additionally, 85% of the U.S. population owns and uses a smartphone. But, how do you protect each device if they’re logging into the network from a remote location? What about customers that are using a public network?  

To adequately protect your users from cyber threats, you need an endpoint protection program that’s right for your business. Let’s explore what that is and what to look for in a solution.  

What is endpoint security? 

At its core, endpoint security is the process of protecting all devices connected to a network, such as phones, laptops, printers, smart watches, desktop computers, and tablets, from cyber threats. Endpoint protection works alongside cloud computing software to identify and protect devices connected to the network.   

This has become increasingly important as employees work further away from their in-house IT security infrastructure. Outside of the protective shield of in-house security built by IT professionals, remote workers may either choose or only have their personal devices to work on. Without proper security software and endpoint protection solutions, this couple unintentionally put the company and the employee vulnerable to attack. In fact, 33% of employees in 2020 were using their own devices to conduct their work remotely, instead of using a company-issued device, according to research by SailPoint. 

The Internet of Things (IoT) has also posed endpoint security challenges. Now, thousands of devices can be connected to the same network at once — most without any protection from hackers at all. 

Why focus on endpoint security? 

Endpoints are considered one of the weakest points in most enterprises’ network security infrastructure because they offer hackers easy access points into the organization’s data. In Ponemon Institute’s 2020 report, 51% of IT professionals blame endpoints for the ineffectiveness of their company’s security solutions.  

It’s not that businesses are failing to take endpoints into account as they build their security systems; they simply don’t consider the full breadth of endpoint security. Instead, companies are only covering their own office devices, and not taking into account other devices and IoT — leaving themselves vulnerable.  

Developing an endpoint security policy could round out the pain points businesses face. With everyone on the same page, and a system of checks and balances across devices, IT teams can create a centralized console to monitor and react to suspicious activity.  

Does every organization need endpoint security solutions? 

With the rise of personal computing solutions in work-from-home environments, and the wave of new devices and new threats, endpoint security has become more important to a successful business.  

Developing a system of greater visibility can help prevent an attack on both your network and everyone connected to it. Network security covers more than just your office devices — it’s every device connected from your employees’ smartphones to their watches.  

The components of an endpoint protection solution include: 

• Application whitelisting, a centralized endpoint management system to track devices, improve visibility, and simplify operations.
• Data identification and classification to prevent data loss.
• Proactive antivirus security for safe web browsing. 
• Machine-learning threat detection with real-time monitoring capabilities.
• A firewall is integrated with the network to prevent incoming attacks.
• Actionable threat detection and forensics to help isolate bugs.

Protecting each device and creating a trusted, secured brand for your customers doesn't come overnight and isn’t necessarily intuitive. You need an integrated program that connects each security check with every individual device.  

To further understand why it is crucial to have a thoroughly developed endpoint protection program, let's take a look at the cyber threats that can occur without these components.

Types of endpoint security threats 

As network connectivity continues to evolve, so do the technologies that threaten it. Here are a few threats to be aware of as you build your security infrastructure: 

• IoT devices: If there are more endpoints to protect, this could create vulnerabilities for your network. Hackers are looking for these openings to manipulate the network and steal information. 
• Remote operations: If your teams are working remotely, you need to ensure that they have the tools to do their jobs well and securely, and that includes their at-home devices.  
• Phishing: Phishing is a type of deception tactic done to gain a victim’s trust and steal their information. You would typically find this type of threat through email or popup ads where the hacker pretends to be a coworker, an interested third-party vendor or any other type of industry-specific person, so the victim will share their information or send money. 
• Malware: Malware is a type of code that infiltrates a business’ data infrastructure and extracts information while leaving behind a broken system. This type of threat may be hard to detect on your own, and it could even lie dormant in the server for months. Hackers may just take the data and run, or they could demand ransomware money up to millions of dollars for the data.   

The most important part of planning for and protecting your company from a threats is knowing that every business is at risk. According to Digital Guardian, infected email systems are the leading cause of threats, with losses and ransomware payments adding up to nearly $2.4 billion in 2021. Of the 847,376 complaints made to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, there were likely many more businesses that just paid the costs and tried to move forward.

The reason ransomware attacks have been successful is due to their ability to alter malware to avoid detection from most security solutions. Countless security programs use blacklists to detect possible malware threats. Essentially, a blacklist is a list of potential threats; if a file or program tried to attack a device, it would be compared to the blacklist. If the program was not found on the blacklist, it would be allowed to run. This approach to security is no longer effective because malware changes every second; user endpoints that use blacklisting as their primary malware detection method may fail to detect new unknown variants. The blacklist will always be a step behind, allowing cybercriminals to be a step ahead of any user.

In terms of cost and reputational damage, ransomware attacks can make it difficult for businesses to recover. Endpoint security platforms that use blacklisting as their primary security strategy used to be an important way to prevent cyberattacks, but this is a way of the past. As technology and cyber criminals advance, this is no longer the best method to use. When looking into which program to select, there is a more advanced security method that can make all the difference for your business, and it is called application whitelisting.

Application Whitelisting, An Essential Part of Endpoint Security

The notion of a layered protection strategy is relatively common, but many IT professionals overlook one of the most robust layers of defense available– application whitelisting. Whitelisting entails banning everything and granting access only to selected domains and devices, while blacklisting focuses on identifying bad actors and preventing them from accessing your systems and network. Although blacklisting does use a threat-focused approach, it has become less effective, as technology and cybercriminals have advanced. Based on this finding, experts concluded that the likelihood of being compromised should drop significantly, as the whitelist only allows access to authorized users.

However, traditional whitelisting is difficult to deploy and even harder for IT staff to manage. The reason is that all applications that employees use must be validated before implementing application whitelisting. During this process, administrators must choose to allow all the applications to run or identify each file and add it to the whitelist manually. If an application is updated on an employee's computer or device, the process must be repeated. After reviewing some of the steps, it is evident that a fully whitelisted environment requires a lot of work and ongoing maintenance.  

The Future of Endpoint Protection

Telesystem’s cybersecurity line, ThreatProtector, includes an Advanced Endpoint Protection solution that was created with the goal to mitigate any concern about the safety and protection of your company, allowing you to focus your time and energy elsewhere, and leave the ongoing maintenance to our professionals.

Our Endpoint Protection solution offers an alternative to traditional whitelisting, with a globally automated whitelist managed by a team of professional malware researchers who will automatically analyze unknown applications and categorize them globally, so you don’t have to. The proactive whitelist security stack approves a list of email addresses, IP addresses, domain names, or applications while denying all others outside of that list; this ensures your organization's protection from viruses/malware and ransomware threats, optimizing your cyber infrastructure. 

All businesses should take precautions to ensure their company and employees are protected. With Endpoint Protection, you get the edge you need to stay steps ahead of cybercriminals.

Telesystem has you covered 

When running a business, we understand the job's complexities, stress, and workload. With the threat of hackers looming over companies today, we want to take care of our client's cybersecurity needs so that they can focus on their day-to-day business activities. Our Endpoint Protection solution includes Global Whitelist technology, Malware protection, Ransomware prevention, and detailed alerting from a cloud-based management portal to give your company room to grow without the constant stress of cyber threats.   

As added layers of protection, we also offer Cybersecurity Awareness Training for employees, Advanced Email Protection, and Managed Security Operations Center (SOC) to protect your business-critical operations and valuable information. If you’re interested in protecting your data, request a quote to get started.